PMan

Iscom was concerned about Publisher not " Inserting image from scanner , ". My way of working is to collect all of the images that I want to use into a single folder, including scanned images and then using the Place Image tool to select them from that one location. The selected images then appear in the Place Images tab and you can then select and drag them as required for placement. Having them to hand like this is much quicker than selecting 1 item at a time from wherever you have stored them or waiting while your scanner produces your input. I have used PagePlus for many years and still do for some work and agree that some things seem better in PP but to use Publisher effectively means re-training yourself. Publisher is still Beta so can't be guaranteed so don't use it for something that you can't afford to lose - however I haven't yet lost anything I have worked . Maybe mail merge might be in the pipeline so keep practising with Publisher and loading new Betas as they arrive -it is a much more powerful tool than PP in many ways [eg -look how Master pages have improved in functionality in the last month alone] and once full integration with Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo is implemented it will far exceed PP. Pman

IF you have selected several objects and then clicked on the Move tool to open the context toolbar, and selected the Show Alignment tool (vertical line with two inward facing arrows) to show Alignment Handles, then unless you go back and toggle Show Alignment Handles Off, alignment handles will show in every new object you create, including text boxes. This allows you align text boxes, a bonus, because it it seems to me that, unlike selecting several objects then opening the Alignment Context toolbar by clicking on the Move, you cannot select several text boxes (not other objects) and then open the Alignment tool bar by clicking on the Move button. Pman

Hi, Assets yes there may be some limitations such as having to use vector graphics (so they can be scaled when inserted), but once you have built up a 'library' it it such a time-saver to be able to quickly select an asset, from your saved assets, into any publication. I'm not sure (nor overly worried about where Publisher saves these assets in it's programme file, but it is as important as with any file to make a backup of your assets by using import and export of your assets; in fact this enables you to build up separate libraries for different purposes. Pman

Hi Tom you said '. As far as i have seen, you can only make a folder and a subfolder. If you need to make a deeper three as iwould have to do for our corporate Designs, that we use for our comuication stuff, this is not enough.' An Asset folder can contain a lot of sub-folders. I don't know what the upper limit is (The iOS12 asset folder holds 20 sub-folders and it is possible to add more IF you wanted to), but since each sub-folder can hold multiple entries (asset), which can be dragged and dropped into a publication, each Asset Folder could easily hold 100 entries. You could make new Asset folders (Category) for each main subject by clicking on the 'hamburger' for Assets and then new Subcategories in each, giving you a large number of assets. Obviously it will take you some time to locate and save the assets you need for your main servers (you would prefer 'drag and drop' but I don't find it takes any longer to make a selection in my publication, click on the 'hamburger' and then choose 'Add from selection' to save an asset) Once you have built up all of the assets you need , you could export these assets to a location, either for you to import in the future, or for associates to import into their Publisher for their use. Pman

Thanks, Seneca, As you point out, the contextual bar shows up when the pointer tool is selected BEFORE LEFT clicking on Master() in the Layers tab. Hope this proves useful to many. PMan

Really impressed with Publisher Beta 1.7.0.227 handling of master pages though, never having used InDesign, I don't know if Publisher is now as functional or better than ID. I watched the introductory video but don't know if this video (https://affinityspotlight.com/article/affinity-publisher-public-beta-vs-170227-now-available-on-auto-update/?utm_source=SpotlightEmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter) was made on Mac or something other than Windows which I am using. At about 6 minutes and 50 seconds into the narrator says you can select the Master page on the Layers tab and when he does that a context toolbar opens Top left where he can select Edit Detached Linked. (Sorry for poor quality of this picture) I can only achieve something similar by RIGHT clicking on the Master page on the layers tab and then selecting from the menu which then opens If I then click on Edit Detached, my screen then includes the orange text box saying ("Editing Master 'A' Detached Apart from that, everything works exactly as the video describes and, as I said earlier, I'm impressed with how Serif have included this in response to people's requests Pman .

Hi AlanPC, Well I'm old (74 in fact) but that doesn't stop me finding how to do similar things in different programmes. You have suggested that you might well stick with Word and set your line spacing to 'No Spacing' and that you generally only output a few pages of PDF. Walt has suggested a way which gives you total control over everything in a a paragraph style, but maybe you want to try something a little simpler first. If you start by drawing out a text box, then you can move the mouse pointer up to this point on the selection bar and you will see the mouse hint 'Paragraph Leading' appear. If you click on this down arrow, you can then set the paragraph leading to the same height (in points) that your text height is and then your text will have no gaps between lines (equivalent to Word's No Spacing). However, hitting 'Enter' will give you a gap between paragraphs equivalent to the height of your text characters, and if you want to change that, you will have to use the controls in the Paragraph Panel to adjust that. It really is worth spending a few minutes experimenting with the Paragraph Panel to achieve exactly the output you require as in my example below which I use a lot in Family Trees, which can be up to 50 pages long! Good luck - I know I won't be going back to Word (or in my case the free Libre Office) when I want the complete control over the output that Affinity Publisher gives me [and remember this is still in Beta so further improvements are very likely Ian Price

Hi, before I added this I even checked I was on Affinity Publisher Beta for Desktop since there seems to be quite a lot about Macs. 1) on my Windows 10 setup wth Canon Pixma MG 3500, I have found that the best way to print booklets using 2 A5 facing pages on A4(because my printer can only handle up to A4 paper) is simply change the option Paper size Defined by Driver to Paper Size A4 (the paper size I am printing on) Since my printer can only print on A4 paper I can't publish a booklet of 2 A4 facing pages-that would require a printer capable of printing A3 paper, but I would assume IF your printer can handle A3 then setting paper size to A3 would print correctly, too. On my printer I have to set Double-sided to Flip short side - other printers may be different For publishing A4 facing pages to PDFs (for me at least) I usually simply select Microsoft Print to PDF as my printer and then set Paper Size to A3 before clicking on OK. This gives a much quicker and smaller output than exporting to PDF Pman

As Haakoo indicated earlier,the settings are there in the paragraph tab, though if you can't find it you might have to go to View ......Studio..............and make sure that there is a tick beside paragraph. Perhaps these pictures will clarify the settings more and of course changes occur 'on the fly' so you see the effect BEFORE you even return to your text whereas with Pageplus you had to select the text you wanted to alter leading for, type in a value and press <Enter> before any change occurred. All changes the paragraph tab are instantaneous (Indent, line spacing and paragraph spacing. So, NauticalMile, it takes time but I've been using PagePlus since it came out on a floppy disk free on the cover of PCPlus magazine , August 1992 edition. I am making the transition to Affinity Publisher and yes it takes time to change and to learn; Thomaso uses the anology of moving to a new town and having to locate sites of things you know are in the new town. I'll give another thought. When changed from a British car to a well known Korean make, the wiper switch and the indicator switches were on the opposite sides of the steering column to what I had used for years. Yes, I knew where they were located but it took weeks before my brain could AUTOMATICALLY select the indicators and not the wipers or more often turning on an indicator instead of the wipers. I appreciate that it will take time to learn how to do tasks in Publisher that you have done for a long time in Pageplus. Be prepared to use the Help function and to look up users tutorial videos on the web. I've produced a 135 page recipe book in Affinity Publisher and it has been a pleasure, especially when wanting to move quickly between pages which are a long way apart. Good luck Pman

Thanks Adam, Downloaded Beta 192 and installed successfully. Pman

Today downloaded Beta 1.7.0.174 and it installed ok on my Windows 10 system - like the new opening splash but was surprised to find text wrapping seemed to be not working any more in a new document. However if I opened a document where I've wrapped text [either text round an object or around a second text box], the wrapping in that is still working. Also if I copied and paste from a working example to a new document, the text wrapping still worked, but if I then made a new text box elsewhere in the document, then selected another object [shape, picture or text box] and then selected the Wrap Tight option, no wrapping occurred. Later I tried resetting Publisher Beta 1.7.0.174 [hold down CTRL while starting up until a screen appears allowing you to choose what to reset] and reset Object defaults. I now find text wrapping is now working again. Maybe something that someone else comes across after upgrading. Apart from that little glitch everything else seems to be working fine, well done, Serif .

Help - Just downloaded Beta 1.7.0.174 on my Windows 1 system and it appears that text wrapping no longer works in a new document. If I open an existing document with text wrapping, that still works fine and also if I copy some wrapped text from an existing document to a new one, that still works too.

Enlarging on my previous post about live updating alignment here are 3 screenshots showing how three text boxes are moved as the slider bar is being adjusted. Above How the text boxes were originally positioned. Below the text boxes 1 and 2 are being moved vertically upwards as a positive input is made Shown below the text boxes 1 AND 2 are now being moved vertically downwards as a negative value is being introduced on the input slider Although I haven't yet really needed this function I thought I'd illustrate it for others who might want to experiment further Pman

On my system (Windows 10, Publisher 1.7.0.157 Beta) my alignment dialogue differs from yours slightly in the position of Auto distribute and the input box. Secondly I can type any number I want into the distance input and mm is automatically appended before the actual alignment operation is carried out. Thirdly if I turn off Auto distribute and click on the down arrow beside the input box then a size selection slider opens allowing you to drag to resize. As you adjust the slider you will see the adjustment being applied live to your selection. Pman

Hi fde101, I liked the last image in your reply. Working from an earlier reply I can get similar results if I drag the image to the RIGHT of text on the Layers Palette (and it works for both Artistic text and Text Frame text) but at no time do I get any of the purple lines that you mentioned, neither in Dark or Light UI. 1 1 example of text mask 2 2 Layers compressed 3 3 Layers expanded However purple lines or not, it still opens up a lot of possibilities for use Pman (Windows 10, Affinity Designer 1.6.5.123, Affinity Photo 1.6.5.123, Affinity Publisher 1.7.0.145 (Beta)

Hi, I tried the above though I used a cog not a rectangle ) and I found that the picture cut off part of the cog and not vice versa so the picture became the mask. I then tried reversing the process ie in the Layers palette drag the picture onto the shape layer Hey presto! That works the way a mask should. Now selecting the rectangle give the option 'Lock Children' so that you can move/resize the rectangle. Resizing the rectangle masks the picture beneath, and finally when you untick the 'Lock Children' you can position the rectangle + picture anywhere in your publication and resize the rectangle (and with it the picture). You will now find that the rectangle is acting just like a picture frame as well , so that if you resize it horizontally (or vertically) only, the image will be stretched to fit it. In these images I have made the rectangle's frame wider so that it can be clearly seen. Rectangle and original picture (above) Rectangle being use to mask parts of image Lock children unticked and rectangle [+ image] stretched However, although the rectangle is acting like a picture frame it does not have the image size control that appears at the bottom of a picture frame when you select a picture frame and which can be quickly used to resize the image within the picture frame ie this tool . To resize an image within your rectangle, using the method outlined above, you have to select your rectangle, tick the Lock Children box, then select the image using the Layers Palette and then resize your image and finally remember to untick the Lock Children box. However it's biggest advantage is that you can use other shapes to use as masks eg So thanks fde101 for helping to provide a solution which provides an alternative way to work! Pman

Your third image is almost identical to my post of 10:13 yesterday except printer type obviously and I used automatic orientation. Ignore any of HP's own settings except paper type and orientation and try printing from Affinity's dialogue box. Can you confirm your spread setup was A5 with Facing pages so page 1 is single, 2 & 3,4 & 5, 6 & 7 are facing and page 8 is a single again. If not set up spread as outlined in my previous post Pman

Sprindigo Can't explain why you are not able to print. I can confirm my printer settings correspond to bph's printer settings and definitely works. However I would add that I don't use my printer's default margin setting when setting up the initial A5 document but instead manually set them at the document setup stage. You could do that afterwards by going to File - Spread Setup [ use Ctrl Alt + Shift + P in Windows] and see if that helps Printer settings Pman Margin Settings set manually Do NOT click on Retrieve Margin from Printer

Similarly you can convert a shape into a text frame, either by 1) using Layer - Convert into Text Fame, or by clicking on the Text Frame tool and clicking inside the object, when the cursor will change from the standard text frame cursor to the Text in Shape cursor ( a pentagon) 1) Showing the standard text in frame cursor 2) showing the Text in Shape cursor 3) Result of using method 2 If you have inserted an image onto a page, then decide that you want it actually in a Picture Frame, you can convert it into an an image in a picture frame by selecting it and going to Layer - Convert to Picture Frame as in Typo998's answer above Pman

Thanks Dave, That's the beauty of forums! Someone points out the obvious which so often we users overlook. I had overlooked the leading control in the text panel even when I set columns in the text panel and columns setting is right beside it. So much easier than going to Paragraph in Studio tabs and setting leading there, though of course there are other paragraph controls in Studio such as first line indent, left and right indents which a user might be wanting to set at the same time. Pman

Ricardo O, Sorry if I didn't explain; my reply wasn't aimed at experts like yourself, but to assist newbies who may have never heard of Quark Express or Adobe's InDesign but have experience of word processing and want to try Desktop publishing for themselves. Here's a thought. If InDesign is so good why are there so many InDesign users complaining about Publisher not working like InDesign does. Can you remember 15 years back when it was introduced? (and it wasn't completely new but based on years of development in Adobe Page maker). Could it do as well then as Publisher Beta does at the moment? Sometimes we mere mortals can only ask for improvements/make suggestions/report bugs to Serif the backroom boys and hope that they can develop the complex code to provide what we'd like. I don't know where Publisher is aiming to position itself that is for Serif to decide Respectfully Pman

Hi Stephen488 Yes it is possible, by using sections. If you Right Click on a page in the Pages panel, you can start a new section. Good luck with your work Pman Once you have made a new section you can then Right Click on the page in your section that you want to be the cover page and this time select Spread properties. In the dialogue box that opens you can select Custom size and then enter the size that your book cover needs to be. When you've done that you will now have different size pages. You will then need to make sure all of your book pages are in a new section that starts after your cover. Good luck with your work Pman

Hi Old Bruce Bet you know why letters are known as Upper Case (capitals to novices) and Lower Case. Aah the good old days of setting by hand and being able to 'read' text as mirror image of outcome Pman

Having explained historical reason that leading is in pagraph properties I meant to add this image just now to make it easier to locate the place to find line spacing on the Paragraph tab if Affinity Publisher. You can either type a value into the box or click on the down arrow and select a value from the drop-down box Pman

Riccard For information only, not intended to censure anybody Line spacing or Leading (pronounced ledding, so called because the space between lines of text used to be set up by inserting strips of lead between lines of text in a printing press) has always been a property found in paragraph settings of all Microsoft text producing products, Libre Office products, Scribus products, Only Office products, to name but a few, as well as Serif products, so it would appear to be a common standard Pman